


The Moment That Ceases to Be True

by glovered



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-19
Updated: 2011-09-19
Packaged: 2017-10-24 09:18:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/261684
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glovered/pseuds/glovered
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Being the only one left just means there's no turning back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Moment That Ceases to Be True

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Misachan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Misachan/gifts).



> This pairing is also known as "Casual" or "Ur-Ass". Written for [](http://spnraritiesfest.livejournal.com/profile)[**spnraritiesfest**](http://spnraritiesfest.livejournal.com/).

  
There were a number of jokes that Uriel had developed over his time looking down on his Father's creation. Questions like why the chicken crossed the road, for instance, or what did a wicked chicken lay? Deviled eggs, was the answer. One of his brothers, more uncharitable than the others although not by much, had wondered aloud why his jokes so often centered around chickens. Uriel wondered aloud, why not chickens?

_Knock knock._

"Is that another joke?" the brother had said. "You always were the funniest angel in the garrison."

Uriel had given up then, because there was only so much criticism one could take before feeling the stirrings of at least one of the seven deadliest.

At first, Castiel was like the rest of them for the most part, but at least he took a stab at humor. Castiel was one of his youngest brothers, and they bonded over their Faith in the Divine and their Father.

There was a moment after that fish struggled to shore and Uriel warned him against stepping on it and before Castiel took up with humans, that Uriel noted how his brother was big and strong, and tall as five-thousand towers of Babel. He wanted him with an all-pervasive sort of yearning.

    


At one point later in history, they were in Uriel's chosen Heaven, the Giant's Causeway with all of its gray upcroppings and slate, flats of stone that had been here and there broken into rubble by the hard and incessant crash of the sea.

Castiel frowned, his trenchcoat flapping at the tails. They were standing at the very edge. He said, "This question accepts the notion that chickens have reasoning skills."

"It's a joke, Castiel."

Castiel gave him a look of consternation. "I don't see the humor."

"You'll need to hear the punchline first."

The punchline was delivered. Castiel still did not find it very funny.

When formulated correctly, jokes were equations of the highest art, a notion of the divine shared between two beings. The search for levity was a frivolous thing, but Uriel had Faith he would get it right one day.

It became clear to Uriel that he was courting Castiel. He took him on three almost-official dates—three because the number was auspicious, and almost-official in that they it was possible they were one-sided.

First, he took Castiel to watch the trickling of melted snow water onto a hot and flat stretch of land. Castiel liked that sort of thing, grand testaments to the work of time. As they stood in the scrub bushes and red, cracked dirt, the stream became a river, and eventually, after years and years, the river dug a groove in the earth where it flowed.

"What a grand canyon this shall be," Uriel spoke aloud. Together they stood like that and pondered God's Plan.

Next, Uriel brought Castiel to witness the rise and fall of the Roman Empire because that was the sort of thing Uriel enjoyed most. There was chaos and a civilization rising only to fall into dust. He could feel the heat of human fervor across his wings and the death that would lead to a beautiful rebirth.

They stood in the wreckage of a burning world and again they pondered.

And finally, on a nice evening, they went for a stroll in the park and caught a late movie. Theirs was a gentle, unspoken love.

    


Uriel was the angel of the month of September.

He was the fire of God and the angel of repentance. He'd stood for half an eternity at the Gates of Eden with a fiery sword, watching over the first thunder and resulting terror, and according to the Revelation of Esdras, he would be among the angels to rule at the end of the world. Most importantly, perhaps, he had had frequent dealings with the Apocalypse.

So when his elder brother Michael called on him two thousand years after the death of Christ, he was unsurprised.

"The Righteous Man has fallen," Michael told him. It was morning and he relayed this message over earl grey tea in the idyllic gardens of the Russian winter palace. "I'm telling you, brother, because it is your business to know. I have been waiting for this moment for a few hundred millennia."

"I am aware." Uriel noted Michael's chosen Heaven was the frequent site of duels, a fitting location to say the least. "I ask myself why you wait at all. Why not simply destroy the vessel?"

"You asked this the last time. Really, Uriel, you and destruction! There is an order of things, a method to all this—" Michael coaxed a word out of the chilly air. "—this madness."

"I'll believe it when I see it."

"Oh tut, Uriel. For one who's received Revelation, you don't seem to have much Faith."

They hadn't heard from their Father in an eternity. Uriel didn't express this in words or telepathic thought, but didn't disabuse Michael of the suspicion either.

    


Things of the romantic nature were no longer going well. Castiel had been much too invested in Humankind from the beginning, which is perhaps what had made him more desirable, but now it was getting out of hand.

Other angels didn't care. Not angels like Michael, who took no notice of humans, and certainly not angels like, say, Zachariah, who had been taxed to meddle in their business if anything went awry. No, Castiel was pure and good and believed that anything his Father loved deserved his love, as well. Uriel felt, in part, that this was his doing; it was he who had drawn Castiel's attention to a fish, after all, as it had struggled up the gravely shore, newly amphibious, that wonder of intelligent design.

"Don't step on that fish," he'd told Castiel. "Big plans for that fish."

It was before he'd realized what a pestilence humans would prove to be, and he recalled with fondness how Castiel had given the sluggish thing over to such scrutiny, sitting next to it and observing as it rolled to shore with an utter lack of dignity. Things never changed.

Now, with the sudden sign of the Apocalypse, it was no surprise that Castiel had looked into the matter. He appeared beside Uriel in the ranks of their brothers in the garrison.

"His name is Dean Winchester," Castiel told him. "He is the one who has been prophesised."

Uriel kept unresponsive.

"I have received Revelation."

Uriel was not in the least bit surprised. All he felt was a dark suspicion. Anger.

"Revelation." The word felt acrid in his mouth, like an ugliness was taking hold of his Grace and strangling it.

Uriel returned to the Giant's Causeway. He kicked at a sea star that had stuck itself near a shallow pool. It skidded across the slick rock and this enraged Uriel further. "I will turn you to dust!" he shouted, as he knocked aside a sand crab that scuttled along.

He felt crackling with energy and an unhappy power that he dared not unleash. Instead, he threw his words around like lightening. A water bird flew by with a fifteen-foot wingspan and Uriel roared to the waves and all that could hear him, "You breed with the mouth of a goat!"

There was a sound from behind. He turned in place to find Castiel, laughing. Uriel crunched a pile of dried shells on his way to him.

"That is...that is very funny," Cas said. _Laughing_. Like he wasn't about to be lost on some fool's errand. "If the goat cannot become impregnated...."

"Castiel," Uriel said. "Where are you going?"

Castiel smiled at him. "Where no one can follow. It is my Mission, and mine alone."

"I know. That's what I worry about."

"It will be short, only forty years and then I'll have returned."

"That's what Noah said. But look where that got him: stranded atop a mountain when the water dropped with nothing but a sodden boat."

"I'm to raise a Righteous Man from Hell. It is an honor."

"Yes, and strand him atop this earth—Nothing has changed."

"If Hell was indeed a vast ocean that wiped out all life, then perhaps. Uriel, you need to get over Noah."

"Perhaps you're getting a handle on humor after all," Uriel said. "Stay."

Castiel's regret was clear, but he seemed lit with anticipation in spite of it. No other Angel had flown down to Hell for one soul. He said, emphatically, "I've received Revelation, Uriel. What would you have me do?"

"Do what you must, but don't tell me that you are under the mistaken impression that one comes back to who they were, after a journey." When Castiel didn't answer, Uriel knew they were through. He said, "Go to Hell, Castiel. You won't be alone in this, but I assure you, you'll not escape unscathed."

    


Time meant very little when you were just following orders, but a thought like a vine had curled its way up his being until it was like to strangle.

And the human was a larger problem than he was worth.

"We raised you out of Hell for our purposes," he told Dean Winchester as Castiel fell all over himself trying to endear himself to him.

Dean rubbed at his shoulder and also looked to his brother, not averting his eyes in deference to the warriors of God, but because he wanted to ask Sam to go get a burger. Sam, at least, looked properly stricken, if not shaking in his boots at the awesome power of Uriel and Castiel.

The third time Dean sighed in impatience, Uriel grasped him invisibly and said, "Listen to me, mud monkey. I've discussed the fates of the leaders of the fallen angels. Among them Azazel. Lucifer. We know how this will end. It will end as it always does."

He'd seen it clearly, as if in a dream. Dean would be the one to turn Castiel against him.

And to think he'd told Castiel from the beginning to watch over them. It would prove, perhaps, the greatest Heavenly joke of all, and Uriel wouldn't be alive long enough to hear it. It was a damn shame, that's what it was.

But it was fine, it was all fine. Being the only one left just meant there was no turning back.


End file.
